Italy hails new sprint king Jacobs
TOKYO, August 1
Lamont Marcell Jacobs won the most coveted crown in athletics on Sunday, giving Italy its first 100 metres gold on a night of high drama.
As Jacobs stormed to the first Olympics title of the post-Usain Bolt era, the fate of a Belarusian sprinter’s Tokyo Games was playing out at a nearby airport.
Krystsina Tsimanouskaya, who had been due to compete in the women’s 200 metres on Monday, told Reuters she had sought the protection of Japanese police at Tokyo’s Haneda airport after being taken to the airport against her wishes. She said the Belarusian coaching staff had taken her to the airport to board a flight back home after she had complained about national coaches at the Tokyo Olympics.
“I will not return to Belarus,” she told Reuters.
The Belarusian Olympic Committee said in a statement that coaches had decided to withdraw Tsimanouskaya from the Games on doctors’ advice about her “emotional, psychological state”. In a video published by the Belarusian Sport Solidarity Foundation, Tsimanouskaya asked the International Olympic Committee to get involved in her case. An IOC spokesperson said the governing body had seen media reports and was looking into it.
Forza Italia!
Jacobs’ European record 9.80-second run ended Fred Kerley’s bid to become the first American winner since Justin Gatlin in 2004. Kerley took silver in a personal best 9.84, while Canada’s Andre de Grasse 9.89 earned him a bronze. “I’ve won an Olympic gold after Bolt, it’s unbelievable,” said the sprinter, who was born in the United States but moved to Europe with his Italian mother when he was a month old.
Gianmarco Tamberi made it double gold for Italy with an emotional, and unusual, high jump victory in a night to remember. The 29-year-old shared the gold with Qatar’s world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim. Tamberi, who broke his ankle days before the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, hugged everyone he could find on the track. Draped in an Italian flag, he was also the first to embrace Jacobs after his 100m win. — Reuters
